The Joy of Voiceover with Trekina White (ColorVO Collective series)
In This Episode…
Trekina's journey from part-time to full-time VO 2:20
The importance of having a home studio (COVID) 8:00
Working when you're on vacation 11:42
Vetting VO resources 15:10
Considerations when you ask us how to get into voiceover 16:52
How to handle auditions that ask you to emulate a celebrity 25:42
Working on your craft alone 31:58
Her best advice about VO 36:32
Key Points
Be Prepared and Take Time to Relax
If you have to travel or take a vacation, be prepared and stay ready to work because you will often get booking requests during that time. Pack a travel rig of equipment so you can record wherever you go. And also decide how much you actually want to work when you are supposed to be relaxing and enjoying yourself on vacation. Having a good work life balance makes you a better actor, because you're not stressed out, you're taking time to step away, and/or spending some time with loved ones. If you are constantly working, you're not living life. You will run out of creative input for your performances, and won't have as much to draw from.
Flesh Out a Plan for Your VO Career
Research voice actors who have the type of career that you want, and see how they got there. Maybe they have a blog or videos or a podcast talking about their journey. Which agencies represent them? Who do they coach with? Which demo producers do they use?
Know that anything is possible, even when you get discouraged. Voiceover is a long game. Most of us don't just pop in and just start announcing things for Oprah out of the gate; we have to put in some work.
Asking Pros for Advice
Do your due diligence before you ask questions of busy professionals. Consider what you may want to do in VO and research all the free information out there first. Watch YouTube, search Facebook groups and listen to podcasts like this one. Daree even has a free VO Resource Guide to give you shortcuts on where to look! Then you ask intelligent, focused questions, not vague. We have all had to invest lots of time and money to build our businesses, so please don't expect that working professionals can always give you free advice.
To be successful in VO, you must get coached. Even the best athletes need coaches. You never get so good at what you do that you can't learn anything new, no matter what business you're in.
Auditioning with Celeb References
Don't forget to be yourself. You don't have to sound just like a celebrity that is mentioned in a casting spec— just bring your version of that energy that they're bringing. We all have a version of what brings us joy, and make the listeners feel it!
Practicing
Transcribe commercials and narration that air, play it and record yourself reading it. You can mimic the actor's delivery, but also play with it and make it your own. You don't want to get ever get stuck in just one way of performing voiceover. (See also the March 2021 VOLifeChat recap for more tips!)
Connect
Bold, classy and sassy, Trekina White keeps it real. An award winning African American female voice actor located in the San Francisco Bay Area, she loves using her voice to bring words to life.
Trekina's voice has been heard for such brands as Apple, Amazon, John Muir Health, PBS Kids, Best Buy and PlayStation as well as a featured narrator on the Calm app.
From the warm, sincere mom, down-to-earth girlfriend, or sophisticated, corporate professional, her voice has the versatility you need for your next project.